This
morning I mailed a form changing my party registration from “decline to
state” to the Green Party. It’s a tiny individual step in response to a
hugely important collective action – the party’s decision at its national
convention to nominate David Cobb for president.

A majority of the
delegates went for a candidate who relied on grassroots organizing and
respectful debate. Cobb won the nomination after proving his capacity to
engage in substantive dialogue with Green Party activists and other
progressives. Without that capacity, he probably wouldn’t have ended up
taking his position in favor of a “safe states” approach to this year’s
presidential race.

How thoroughly Cobb
and his running mate Pat LaMarche will implement such a strategy remains to
be seen. Hopefully, history will record that in 2004 the Green ticket
boosted the party’s strength among progressives nationwide while making
common cause with the wide array of movements determined to prevent a
victory for the Bush-Cheney gang on Election Day.

As a practical matter,
ending the George W. Bush presidency on November 2 will require sufficient
votes for John Kerry in most of the 20 or so swing states: Oregon and
Washington; Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado; Iowa, Illinois,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Delaware;
New Hampshire and Maine; West Virginia, Arkansas and Louisiana; and, of
course, Florida.

(Since I live in
California, where Kerry is running 12 to 15 points ahead of Bush, I’m safely
voting for Cobb. But if I lived in one of the 20 closely fought swing
states, I’d vote for Kerry.)

With the swing states
all too close for comfort, activists should be emphatic that the Green
Party’s presidential campaign this year ought to concentrate its efforts on
“safe states” -- where the Bush-Kerry race isn’t close.

The Green Party should
not be at cross-purposes with the progressive movements struggling to end
the Bush presidency. People in those movements will long remember, for good
or ill, how the Green Party conducts itself between now and the day that
seals the fate of the Bush White House.

One of the potential
key benefits of Cobb’s nomination is that he seems genuinely interested in
hearing -- and being responsive to -- grassroots activists. This is a
refreshing and vital departure for a Green Party presidential nominee. So,
more than ever, it’s time for activists to speak up.

If
strategic thinking prevails, the possibility exists that the Green Party in
2004 will strengthen itself from the bottom up while also providing tangible
solidarity in the national effort to defeat Bush. If the Green Party proves
equal to this momentous task, it could open up new possibilities for the
years and decades ahead.